I promise this isn't a rant or cry for help; I'm just sharing an interesting observation that the Linux community might appreciate. Please know I'm comfortable and knowledgeable enough to be dangerous on any platform, though I generally prefer Unix/Linux and macOS over Windows. I inherited an obsolete, under-powered MacBook Air (Intel i5, 4G RAM, 128G SSD) and I've been testing virtually every popular distro on it for the last few months. I encountered the same Linux shortcoming across every distro, and I thought some of y'all might find this mildly interesting.

There seems to be an underlying issue running Linux on MacBooks, stemming from the fact that MacBooks require a kernel module with proprietary firmware blobs to support their Broadcom wifi & bluetooth hardware. Now, the Broadcom module is readily available in every standard package manager, but it will never be included in the mainstream kernel since it contains closed source software. For distros with a self-contained installer, this is not a huge problem at first - just download and install the appropriate Broadcom package separately to patch your kernel after installation and you should be good, right?

No. Trouble is the kernel and other packages (but mostly kernel) get updated constantly, seemingly without regard to existing kernel module compatibility. Depending on the distro, that Broadcom package might be weeks or even months behind the latest kernel release. The effect of this is that it's never safe to just run software updates on a MacBook, because you're playing roulette with your wifi hardware every time. Desktops with ethernet are easier to recover from because it's easy to plug in, but for a laptop relying on wifi it's a much bigger hassle when your wifi breaks.

Obviously you can just revert to a prior kernel then pin the working kernel version in place, but held packages like your kernel impact other software as well. Simply running Linux on MacBook hardware generates this ongoing cycle of issues over the proprietary software blobs required for the hardware. Typical designed-for-Windows devices face this issue far less frequently, so the added hurdle for MacBooks feels mostly ignored by the general Linux community.

This makes rolling release distros particularly problematic on MacBooks, which is really a shame. Even an atomic distro like Bazzite (which provides that Broadcom module right out of the box, by the way) breaks a MacBook's wifi sooner or later if you install updates normally. I thought I was clever running Kali Linux for awhile. It runs really nicely on this meager hardware and KDE felt zippier than many other distros. I still had to manually install the Broadcom driver after installation, but with a Debian back-end I was really hoping it would pull delayed enough releases to keep the wifi working... it did not. Kali runs a rolling release based on Debian Testing, which still pulls recent enough kernel updates to break the wifi.

Many Arch-based distros won't even install (btw), because the install images require a working networking stack, relying solely on the kernel's built-in hardware support. I'm certain there are workarounds, but there's no obvious, easy way for casual users to inject the required Broadcom module into the downloaded installer. Sadly, the best long term solution I've found is to just stick to annual, major LTS release distros like Debian Stable where enough time passes after most package updates that my cursed Broadcom module has had sufficient time for the dev to catch up.

Don't get me wrong, I've been running Debian + KDE on my older-but-much-beefier MacBook Pro for years now, and it's been a constant source of pleasure to use. I just thought I'd share a little about the unique challenges of a Linux fan who happens to own some aging Mac hardware. Someone here probably knows an obvious solution to make this far easier for the average user. I'm not begging anyone for help, though I certainly welcome your comments. In any case, I hope you enjoyed this read. Mac hardware would be really nice to run Linux if it weren't for this module annoyance.

Sorry if this is a newb question; I'm coming in cold. I've had HAOS running on an RPi4 for months, but I haven't invested in any smart devices to connect yet.

I'd like to start with some (ideally open source) smart gauges just to check the temp out front and back. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

One site I've been following for awhile is https://notifycyber.com/

...but I'd love some more. What are your must-haves?

I just inherited a handful of Samsung Series 7 Slate PCs that I'd like to rebuild to be as "tablet-like" as possible for a few non-technical friends and family. They power up but arrived with non-functional Windows 7 installs. They're Intel Core i5s with 4G RAM and 128G SSDs, so they should run pretty well under any popular Linux distro. I'm personally comfortable in the command line and don't want to sacrifice the fact that these are "real computers with a real OS" on them, but I'd still like them to behave somewhat similar to Android tablets for less techie users.

If these were laptops with keyboards and trackpads I'd probably just install kubuntu or Mint on them and call it a day, but I'm not sure if KDE Plasma behaves well on a touchscreen tablet interface with (hopefully) an on-screen keyboard and so forth. Ubuntu Touch sounds somewhat promising, but I haven't really played with it. I don't want to waste hours trying to get device drivers to work for the touchscreen and other built-in hardware, so I'm hoping for a novice-friendly distro that usually just works out of the box on most hardware.

Does anyone have an obvious choice they'd like to recommend? Thanks so much!

Edit - Update:

Zorin OS (Edu) for the win, with Pop! OS essentially a tie. Both distros do a fantastic job out of the box offering tablet options like on screen keyboards that automatically pop up when needed. I'm giving Zorin the win only because it just happened to be the last distro I installed and haven't had a reason to replace it yet.

Distros I tested for use on these tablets:

Bliss OS - Honestly, I really wanted to like this, in spite of it being an Android clone instead of a proper Linux DE. It sports an obviously tablet-friendly UI that almost won me over... except there were horrible issues just typing in basic settings like wifi password. The keyboard kept disappearing mid-password, making me start over repeatedly. I finally had to grab a real keyboard to join wifi, and it still misbehaved. Not an experience I want my less geeky family members to share.

kubuntu - I run this on a personal laptop and was biased toward it from the start. It isn't really a great tablet experience though, even with xvkbd installed. Works great while docked of course, since it's a Linux DE I already use.

ubuntu-unity - Another good DE, but just not very tablet friendly. I guess I hoped this would be more like Ubuntu Touch, which I was really excited about as a new phone possibility awhile ago, but just never really went anywhere. Instead it's just Ubuntu with the Unity DE and no automatic on-screen kb.

Pop! OS - I really like this, and might start playing with it more as a laptop OS as well. I truly love KDE Plasma, but I also find Pop!'s DE really intuitive.

Zorin OS (Edu) Loved this, left it installed. Their built-in Windows App compatibility (wine + PlayOnLinux) comes pre-configured to provide a surprisingly refreshing user experience. On a fluke, I wanted to see if I could run my mixer app on the tablet, and starting with nothing more than downloading the installer .exe file from Mackie's website, Zorin prompted me all the way through to a working app. Friendliest wine experience I've ever had, by miles.

Anyone have anything else they'd like to recommend? I'm always interested. Did I not give a popular distro a fair enough shot? I admittedly didn't invest a huge amount of time stress-testing each distro beyond initial setup and config from within the tablet-specific interface. I was mainly testing for out-of-box tablet experience, especially in regards to basic setup like joining wifi and attempting to browse the web, which shouldn't require a hard kb connected IMO.

Edit 2: Fixed copy/paste edit issue, no new info)

(crossposted from c/Cloudflare on lemmy.ml) The Cloudflare community doesn't appear to be active yet, so I was hoping some fellow self-hosters might have a good suggestion. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!

https://lemmy.ml/post/3723540